


Freckles

by gxee



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Identity Reveal, Accidental meeting, And a Disgusting Amount of Pancakes, Being friends with a Super Hero isn't a Great Idea™ when you're a Mercenary, Casual Friendship to Actual Friendship, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Jealousy, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Peter's Freckles will be the death of him, Pre-Deadpool Wade, Secret Identity, Young Peter, kind of?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-16 15:43:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9278441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gxee/pseuds/gxee
Summary: Wade supposed it wasn't all that weird having a superhero hang out in his apartment every once in a blue moon; after all, it was the least someone would expect after living in New York City for the last ten years.He paid no mind to the fact that the red clad stranger showed up in the middle of the night, restless and sometimes bloody in his railway balcony, looking for a place to catch his breath and grab a bite of whatever Wade had cooked in an attempt to get over his insomnia. Neither it bothered him that the vigilante often striked an animated conversation with him. Being one of the few supers that still insisted on keeping their identities anonymous must have been a little lonely, he assumed.The one thing that did surpised him about this whole situation he had found himself at was the fact that everytime the hero pulled up his mask halfway up to eat or drink, he met a heavy amount of freckles sprinkled all over his skin.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> An attempt to bring [this](http://happy-little-ghost.tumblr.com/post/150786816339/endless-list-of-stories-i-wanna-write-freckles) to life.

_Unusual_ , might have been the perfect word to describe Wade Wilson’s life. Unusual, because even with all the clichès that came along with the stereotypes of being 1) an orphan “because after his mother died his father was as good as dead to him”, 2) a runaway from an abusive household and 3) a man with no direction -or as he admitted himself being, a punk,- that joined the army in search for a purpose and that had only found that he hated following orders and that had a way with putting bullets inside enemies’ bodies, he had still managed to witness quite an amount of weird shit that he was fairly certain, no one his age would have ever come across had it not been for some of the decisions he had taken.

Decisions that among a number of things included both joining and leaving the Special Forces, the latter one with a notorious honorable discharge.

Wade had never thought of his life as _boring_ , and truth be told, he knew that although over the years it could have been described using plenty of adjectives- some relatively nice, such as “ _reckless_ ”, “ _fun_ ” and “ _adventurous_ ”, among some others not so nice, such as “ _cruel_ ”, “ _lonely_ ” and “ _violent_ ”- ; yet, “boring” was not one of them.

He had seen plenty of things during his years as a soldier, but even more after he was discharged, maybe because after spending so many years behind either ends of a gun messed anyone’s head that way.

He had been familiar with PTSD, and perfectly aware of the way it -alongside the rest of the unpleasant situations he had found himself through- had changed him for better or for worse.

For worse because even after years and after having settled down once and for all in a tiny apartment in the south east of New York City, far away from the line of fire and having grown to love the constant noises of the restless suburbia that opposed to cold memories of nights on end spent in tactical silence, nightmares still seemed to haunt him. For worse because although he no longer experienced panic attacks at the slightest change in the atmosphere, he was still painfully conscious of his surroundings. For worse because one way or another he still felt drawn towards danger, resulting in his inability to get an actual job or even dream of the idea of getting a title.

For better because despite all that, he had managed to build himself a relatively tranquil lifestyle, or at least as tranquil as it could get when it included the kind of daily trips across the city he needed to do in order to take care of whatever job was slipped to him under his mat -or rather, over the bar table at Weasel’s. For better because if there was one thing Wade Wilson was good at besides running his mouth a mile a minute, that was paying attention to the most seemingly unimportant details, those little things that always made the difference when doing the things he did. For better because on the long run, the way he had become fanatically neat, careful and attentive at each and every one of his jobs, had earned him a reputation that -even if he wasn’t keen on actually keeping- made the bills get paid as people looked for his services, and he had the rare benefit of the choice on whether he accepted or declined the offers.

Long story short, being a military trained assassin had its perks when working as a mercenary. And being a top notch, Wade had seen _some_ _shit_.

If to all of that you added the fact that over the last couple of years the city had been the scenario of several catastrophes that had followed the first alien invasion, and that usually involved a circus of super heroes and a Hulk flying around the buildings and destroying more than they saved more often than not, to the point where most people who lived there -Wade included- didn’t consider it weird anymore; it was a safe bet saying that he was hard to impress.

In a way, that didn’t bother him. He thought of himself like a grown up boy-scout, “ready for anything” and all that jazz, except that with guns.

That does not mean, however, that he wasn’t surprised when he woke up that fateful friday in the wee hours after yet another night terror and decided to head out for a walk to clear his head, just to find a dark figure lying against the one window of his tiny apartment that was connected to the fire escape.

Frightening would not be an adequate word to describe the one feeling that shook through his body when meeting the unexpected shadow of a body blocking the neon lights from the building next door inside his home, as much as bewilderment would be. He was not afraid, since he knew that whoever it could be stood no chance against him inside his own house -the one place he had best knowledge of both hiding and gun stashing spots-, no, he was rather bemused to wonder what it could be that this one stranger was doing against his window and what could he possibly be looking for so desperately that he had climbed over ten stories up of stairs, considering he lived on a 12th floor.

The most paranoid side of him took no time on meditating an answer for that, a rather annoying voice in the back of his head yelling that it was obvious that whoever they were, they had come to get him. He pushed said voice down until it was nothing but a distant memory of murmur when another realization hit him as he stared at the body resting against the glass.

It wasn’t moving.

And while that didn’t exactly mean the stranger wasn’t an imminent threat, as Wade’s mistrustful brain kindly reminded him, something inside him snapped at that detail, urging him to move forward against all sense of self preservation, closer to the window.

The moment he opened said window in order to take a closer look, and he found himself staring at the oddly familiar crimson mask the stranger’s face was hidden under, the first thought that crossed his mind was that he should have seen it coming.

Seriously, it was New York after all. It was not something that happened every day, but having so many vigilantes running around rooftops and fighting crime at all hours for the past five years or so, it was more than a plausible possibility to find one of them either hurt or catching their breath -although that would have been likely what they were trying to avoid- just around the corner. Or in Wade’s case, in his railed balcony.

A quick scan revealed that the man was still breathing, and flinching halfway each inhale, his shoulders contracting in a manner that wasn’t easily noticeable unless seen from up close and a hand on the side of his torso pressing tightly. _Broken ribs_ , was Wade’s first thought, averting his vision back to the head of the stranger, hoping to find another sign of consciousness, besides the pain body spasms, in their face.

He blinked, a not quite unamused expression plastered in his face as said masked vigilante turned in his direction and stared at him behind the thin white fabric that covered his eyes.

He held the other’s stare in immaculate silence, something as strange to Wade as it was the passing of the Halley’s Comet to normal people, a once-in-a-lifetime kind of deal, given his inability to “ever shut the fuck up” as Weasel phrased it so nicely, in hopes that the hero would be the first to say anything.

When encountered with nothing but breathless panting from him, Wade didn’t even bother on fighting the smile pulling at the corners of his mouth before asking, and knowing how stupidly the obvious question sounded: “Are you okay, man?”

Wade would have bet all his money that the man glared at him at that, but nobody would have been able to tell, since the mask made him remain expressionless on the surface.

“Yeah,” came the reply in a bitter voice, followed by a snort, “Peachy,”

Biting his lips to hold back his laughter, and ignoring the sirens of both excitement and worry ringing on his head as the fact that it was indeed _him_ there, bickering back at him settled down; Wade carried on conversationally, unable to hold himself any longer.

Silence was _so_ boring after all.

“Rough night, Spidey?”


	2. Chapter 2

The stranger snorted mirthlessly before answering, “What makes you think that?” The sarcasm still heavy on his tone.

“Oh well,” he said, “it’s not everyday that New York City’s wonder boy shows up unannounced at half past fuck it, bringing up nothing but his presence and all dressed up, looking like they need a drink,”

“My bad,” retorted the man, still sounding annoyed but not particularly mean or directed towards him, “next time I’ll bring some pie,”

“Or you could just call, you know, give a guy some time to clean up,” Wade shrugged, his mocking grin still not faltering.

“I would have, but my phone died,” the other man answered, looking for something inside a pocket in his suit that Wade hadn’t noticed due to the shadows, with the hand he wasn’t using to hold himself. He fished and held up a black phone with a badly cracked screen, due -obviously- to the bullet still stuck in it, “quite literally,” he added.

Wade laughed at the man as he put the device back in his pocket, his sight lingering on him and averting once more to the tight hold he was keeping on his side. “How many ribs?” He asked casually, feeling quickly at ease with the light banter and the looseness of the stranger, the alert of imminent danger ringing in his ears still present, but reduced mostly to an echo as he relaxed.

The man held up three fingers in response and sighed in pain before answering, “They’ll be healed in a couple of days but pain is still a bitch,”

“Well, the cold sure isn’t helping you, man,” he said matter-of-factly.

“It’s not like I can get picky on where I choose to stay to catch a breath,” the hero commented, his tone annoyed. “Not all of us can afford the luxury of taking a break in a fancy hotel room with a thermostat.  _ Some _ of us have places to be in the morning, jobs to attend to,  _ homework _ to do,”

Wade snorted. “I take you’re not precisely one of those infamous billionaire vigilantes,”

The man shook his head. “That’s a mistaken, elitist stereotype perpetuated by stupid comic books and lucky bastards like Stark,”

“Damn,” Wade breathed out a laugh. “So Spiderman is broke as hell. And here I was, thinking I could get some profit out of this,”

There was a heavy pause lingering between them before the stranger pointedly questioned him. “Would you really charge a guy with broken bones for spending half an hour in your fire escape?”

Wade held up his hands in a defensive stance. “Hey! A guy has to pull through this economy!” he defended himself in a mocking tone.

A second later, Wade was greeted with a burst of laughter erupting from the red clad hero, immediately followed by a wince as he contracted himself if pain, the motion having turned out to be not quite a great idea. Wade truly tried not to show how much it amused him, but he most certainly failed.

Still he made an attempt to make up for it when he felt the stranger’s eyes on him, judging him quietly and expressionless. He guessed it was the least he could do.

“You want some help?” he offered, bluntly; not quite thinking what the question could have implied and again ignoring his well founded sentiment of paranoia, the way his heart rate picked up ever so slightly as he pronounced the words even though he had meant them.

The masked man took a deep breath before leaning once more against the window frame, clutching his torso tightly. His visors were still faced in Wade’s general direction, so he supposed he still hadn’t looked away from him, but it was still uncertain. And a little frustrating.

“I think I’m good,” responded the man after a moment, a hint of a sarcasm tainting his voice. “Mind if I stick around? Charge free, maybe?”

Wade swallowed as he contemplated the other for a split second, the paranoid side of him ringing off a bell that reminded him about a significant aspect of him that was hard to forget in the first place, but that became even more evident in that moment while standing in front of the vigilante. His job.

His job and the fact that not even five minutes ago he had recalled the location of each and every single one of the weapons he kept inside his house when he had refused to let himself feel threatened over a dark figure on his window, thinking of the fastest way to get them in case the worst case scenario arose.

The rational side of him told him to take the easy way out and keep the answer polite but terminant. The rational side of him instructed him to open his mouth and articulate a response that would guarantee him to sleep assured for one more night whenever he actually managed to get a couple of hours of rest, instead of worrying himself over the possibility of having this stranger stick his nose in the wrong place and earn himself a certainly much deserved ass kick and a ticket to the closest police station for the next few minutes if he was lucky enough.

The brightest side of Wade Wilson came up with an eloquent answer and and a completely understandable excuse for him to blurt out to the man in red.

Years later, Wade would still be questioning himself what had moved him then, to merely shrug at the stranger huffing out a laugh, and tell him “Sure man, you want some pancakes?” without even skipping a beat.

Maybe another part of him had thought it would be much too evident to try and sneak out from the guy, that he would catch his act immediately and he’d notice something weird was going on, that it was far easier to play it cool over having to come up with excuses.

Or maybe that other part of him was really stupid.

The man in the suit went quiet for a moment at the proposal, before asking, quite amused; “Pancakes?”

“Uh, yeah,” Wade flashed him a smile.

“It’s four am,”

“It is,”

* * *

That was how Wade Wilson found himself making use of his last box of pancake mix in his remarkably tiny kitchen, as a very quiet vigilante sat only a few feet away on a suspiciously stained green sofa in his living room.

The man was quite aware of the eyes of the stranger fixated on him, even as he wasn’t facing him. 

The feeling of being observed was not something Wade could easily ignore, even if he was purposely pretending to. It was inevitable for him to notice the way the air inside that cranky apartment had turned thicker by the second, or the weight of a pointed stare behind white visors pinned on his back. It was a threatening and familiar sensation he experimented rather often, much to his dismay.

He had never enjoyed the feeling of being scrutinized by anyone.

But he could play it cool, for his own sake. Like most other aspects in his life, he didn’t like letting his paranoid gut guide his acts. Especially when a part of him feared that what was simply someone looking in his general direction could turn into someone recognizing him as a criminal, and that the angry curve of the outline of the mask’s eyes matched what was hidden underneath.

So in order to at least try and make things just a little less awkward, he had done what he knew he could do best.

He talked.

He talked, loud and noisily about the most ridiculous and pointless ideas that came to his head to fill the heavy silence that weighed between him and the unlikely visitor, not even expecting a response from him other than a short comment or a witty remark every few sentences he spluttered out.

He talked, checking his guest over his shoulder with a friendly face, acknowledging his presence and listening attentively when the wounded hero finally gave in and took a more active part in the conversation, tense shoulders relaxing slowly and a crooked posture easily adjusted and laid back against worn out backrest of the furniture.

He talked like this whole situation hadn’t been much of a big deal, like making chocolate chip pancakes for a dude clad in spandex was something he did every other tuesday and it just happened to be Spiderman this week.

“So I call this dude, Jack. He’s like my brother from another mother, and I mean he just  _ might _ be; my old man wasn’t that much of a gentleman in the first place, and he kinda has his eyes, you know?” he rambled, flipping over the last of the pancakes as the stranger snorted. “And I tell him about it, and he asks me ‘do you want me to talk you out of doing the stupid thing?’ and I’m like, I don’t know! Are you going to?”

“Did he?” questioned the hero.

Wade turned around to give him a sarcastic glance after he left the pancake on top of the growing pile and turned off the stove. “He’s a bartender. He doesn’t know how to talk someone out of taking a bad decision, his job consists of convincing people of making them and get a tip for it,” since the masked man didn’t point anything out, he kept going as he reached inside his cabinets looking for a bottle of syrup. “So you’ll figure out how that went,”

“So you’re telling me you ended up taking care of seven chickens and five cats for two weeks for a prostitute you barely knew, just because she bought you a drink and lend you twenty bucks?”

“Well I kind of owed her my life after that night,” Wade shrugged, took the plate and a pair of forks before walking back into the living room. “You’ll never know when a blowjob and a twenty dollar bill will come handy,” he added as he dropped himself down on the other end of the couch, holding out the plate for his guest to reach.

The stranger’s mask’s visors focused on the sticky, maple drenched pile of pancakes for a brief moment, before turning back to Wade’s face when he finally grabbed the offering cautiously. “I thought you said you didn’t sleep with her,”

Wade’s brow furrowed at that. “I didn’t,”

There was a short pause from the other man’s end before he muttered: “You just said… nevermind,” and shook his head, bringing his face down to stare at the warm dish he had set on his lap in silence.

That only confused Wade even further, as he noticed the way the fabric of the other’s mask shifted due to an expression he couldn’t decipher.

It was a little frustrating, not being able to tell what his companion was thinking nor feeling because of the mask. He was so used to being fantastic at reading people simply by looking at their faces and noticing the small, telling tics in their features that, even in the most avid cases of resting-bitch-face, still gave away a hint of emotion.

A subtle twitch in the cheek, a barely there quirk of an eyebrow, a rapid flutter of eyelids, a soft curve on the lips could make all the difference.

But all Wade had in front of him was an expressionless red cloth with a distinctive black webbing pattern, and angled visors that, if anything, merely resembled a furious, nearly murderous stare.

He found it funny, how the vigilante that was widely characterized by his friendliness and nice temper, just happened to be one of those who looked threatening and menacing. Maybe that was exactly why The Bugle was so onto him. The creepy crawling on walls didn't help him either.

Wade thought that the guy had been either quite stupid when coming up with the design of his suit, or a goddamned genius. After all, there was no doubt that as friendly as he was, the man could be quite the threat for the wrong people.

Wrong people as in those in his line of work, himself included; as it kindly reminded him his most rational side.

Wherever his train of thought might had been trying to lead him to, it suddenly came to a violent halt when his guest moved after several seconds of an unnatural silence and stiffness that had taken over him, his right hand -the one that he hadn’t been holding himself with- leaving the plate and coming up slowly to rest on his neck; fingers picking on the red fabric, trying to grasp an inexistent fold of the cloth stretched against the stranger’s neck after he had thrown it back.

After all Wade had seen through the arguably short span of the twenty-seven years he recalled living, he thought he was prepared for anything.   


The moment the stranger had finally managed to catch the nearly imperceptible hem of the mask, his mind had gone over all the possibilities he could have faced when it went up and he had made peace with each and every single one of them.

When the hero finally dragged the fabric upwards, careful and hesitatingly until the edge rested wrinkled up over the bridge of his roundy nose, Wade became shamefully aware of how fast and violently his heart was hammering against his ribcage. He wasn’t sure if it was out of excitement, shock or fear.

He was ready to find any shade of skin, or even a color that would not be considered by any means normal, such as purple or green.

He was ready to see deep scars from old fights, from bullet wounds to cuts to Lichtenberg ones, as he recalled to have heard of the hero being electrocuted once or maybe twice in the news. He was ready to catch a glimpse of something he may wouldn’t have called human. He was ready to meet fur, scales, gills or fangs; or even something perhaps unheard of, such as black leather-like skin and a lipless mouth full of sharp teeth.

He was prepared for the blunt sight of dried up blood streaming from the stranger's nose strills, down his plump lips and the tip of his chin, that hadn’t been noticeable prior -clearly- due to the color of the mask.   


He was most definitely not prepared for freckles.

Thousands of tiny, pokey, ridiculously small freckles were sprinkled all over the stranger’s tanned skin, clouding his cheeks and nose and falling like faint raindrops as they reached down his squared jaw and what was visible of the column of his neck. He found himself staring intently at them, deeply fascinated and shaken at the contrast of a feature so intrinsically childish against the clear signs of violence in the rest of his face.

The man had a split lip, and the skin underneath his left eye was swelled and bruised in vibrant purple.

“Staring is rude,” said the half unmasked man calmly as he took a bite out of the pancakes, shaking Wade out of his absorption.

For a second he thought he imagined it, and if he had blinked he would have missed it, but he was certain that right before the stranger’s lips closed around the fork’s teeth he had caught the littlest hint of a smile pulling at the corner.

Feeling completely thrown aback at what that smirk, a knowing smirk, could possibly have meant he decided it was probably a good idea not to dwell much into that until later, and instead focusing on the conversation he had been having with the man.

Which brought him back to-

“A blowjob is a drink, not sex,”

He couldn’t help his laugh when he saw the other man choke and get a sudden coughing fit.

“Sorry, I know how that came out,” he excused himself, not really feeling it. He was far more amused by the vigilante’s reaction. “But it is! It’s a good one actually, it has whipped cream,” he reasoned.

“Of course it does,” he heard the other man muster up under his breath, wiping off his mouth with the back of his gloved hand.

“I’m serious. I’ll give you one next time you come around,” he said before he could think it through any further, basically seeing the chance and taking it. “Wait,” he added in a mocking tone, his mouth twisting into a smile.

And even if the alarm bells rang louder than ever on his head at the prospect of having someone whose  _ job _ was taking people like him behind bars nosing around his home, not just once, but twice, where he could easily stumble upon certain objects that would make the hero suspicious of Wade; the rush of blood that tinted the lower half of his face deeply at his words convinced him it was worth the risk.

At least until the stranger flashed him a sharp,obvious smirk of his own before saying, “Never been much of a fan of anything with alcohol, but even if I was. What makes you think I’d swing by this place again?”


End file.
